Rita Notes: American garden furniture

Golden age

William Kent was quite the polymath. He turned his hand to all manner of artistic pursuits; including painting, sculpture architecture, interior decoration, furniture, metalwork, book illustrations, theatre design and landscape gardening - and in doing so he played a central role in defining British taste and a new design aesthetic for the period.

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On the 300th anniversary of the Hanoverian accession to the British throne, the V&A has brought together nearly 200 examples of William Kent's work from plump upholstered chairs to decadent gilt tables and neat architectural drawings.

Flamboyant and exuberant, he was known as 'Kentino' to his clients - a long and impressive list of England's rich and illustrious. He was the architect of the Horse Guards and the Treasury in Whitehall; he designed the gardens at Chiswick, Rousham and Stowe, he decorated the halls at Kensington Palace and much of Houghton Hall - a latter day 'Thomas Heatherwick or Terence Conran' says the curator Julius Bryant.

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William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain is at the V&A from March 22 to July 13.